My Last Post

I had written a much longer message.  

I fell in love with a girl.  I was in love with her even before I stopped writing this and I omitted every detail of our relationship, everything about her really.  I think I might have mentioned her, a couple of times, but if I did it was in passing and without any real detail and certainly without hint of my true feelings toward her.

The post I deleted was going to explain, in some detail, exactly how she broke my heart; but the more I wrote the more distraught I became.  

The pain she caused me makes me hate her more than I've ever hated anybody or anything, which creates a whole new level of ambivalence within me as I still love her so fucking much and I can't help but grieve what she did, what I allowed to happen, what I did and what we lost.  I can't stop grieving it.  Lord knows I've tried.

It was love at first site.  I didn't even realise that this was this case until she finally slipped through my fingers.  I didn't believe in 'love at first site', other than infatuation based on a physical attraction, but now I think on it it's something I've experienced twice; once with a lady in Norway who eventually blocked me on all forms of communication for.. reasons I'm only vaguely clear about, to be honest.  And once with this girl who broke my heard so badly I suspect the damage to be completely irreparable.  (And the Norwegian chick doesn't really count as 'first sight' as i met her online and i don't think I actually saw her the night I first spoke to her).

My feelings for her spilled out in the end, I suspect after my last post, here.  And we had a relationship that I kept a secret throughout its duration.  I only got to meet up with her a few times since then.  I'd have seen her twice as often but things kept coming up that prevented me.

And because of that she cheated on me.  I'm not trying to justify her behaviour, I can't.  I recognise i had a hand in causing what she did but she was the one who did it and there were things she could have done to stop it, to rectify any problems between us without fucking some moron who won't move in with the woman he claims to love.

I kept my feelings of her completely hidden for as long as I could and, as a result, this blog seems to be full of lies and lies of omission.

I was about to delete the whole thing.

But I can't do that.  I started this blog as a sort of homage to my sister, who passed away more than 5 years ago, now.  It might be a failed homage but an homage it is nonetheless and I don't have the heart to destroy it.

If anybody who ever reads this has any idea how it may be possible to actually travel back through time... Please let me know.  I don't know what I'd give how far I'd go but I suspect it'd be "anything" and "anywhere".

Goodbye.

We All Scream

I guess I stopped posting because I felt I didn't have enough to say, but the truth was I'd lost the motivation to do housework and other things and I can't comment on my life away from the keyboard if I'm doing my utmost not to have one.

I have, lately, found the motivation, and I believe it's something the Lord has strengthened me with.

Mum got me up to see to Pickle, this morning, but she went back to sleep soon after I got there so I just curled up next to them and nodded off myself until my sister arrived and promptly woke pickle (who was less than pleased about it) and thus woke me and mum as well. Mum told me she was here to clean and told me to go and help, so I went back to my room to dress appropriately and god back in bed for the next few hours.

I got up, checked my (web) comics, emails, etc, and was eventually called down to watch Pickle by her mother, who it turned out hadn't been cleaning but had absconded with the aforementioned baby and had not long returned with her and was no leaving again without her. (From what I gather she'd only returned to to hassle Mum about whatever while she was trying to address some envelopes and was only annoyed that she'd been interrupted from a task she'd wanted to finish sooner).

Apparently the reason she didn't do any cleaning was because yesterday's dishes hadn't yet been done. Which was annoying; although I've generally finished cooking much sooner than I had been used to (typically I would finish cooking at about 10pm for a variety of reasons that mostly boil down to my short attention span and it takes me about 15 minutes to find and pick up where I left off. Or we don't have a necessary ingredient to the meal I already started cooking and need to go for it). I'm rather happy that I've managed to get my meals on served between 6 and 8pm for the last 2 weeks (with only a couple of times running into 'over time', however I take a weirdly long time to serve each plate. This probably comes back to me being easily distracted).

I don't remember what took me so long on sunday night, I don't even remember what we had, thinking about it. In any case it was getting I had made a habit of washing up the morning after, which somehow seems less stressful (having cooked the damn meal to begin with). And there was, for some reason, more than usual to do.

(I finally did the washing up before I started dinner, not that I had anything to worry about as we got some paper plates for the coming meal). I was to have Pickle until Mum finished writing the envelopes; then we were to go to the post office and drop Pickle off with Tony was in the bookies (we roused him from the bookies but he came and took Pickle at the post office).

We went to Morrison's to pick up what mum assured me would only be a few items for dinner that turned into a full trolly's worth of shopping that came to more than £72. Top top it off her cards were declines, so I generously paid myself. Then, finally getting around to buying the ice cream she'd been promising for ages (since I pointed out it was half price), we went to tesco to get some. Annoyingly we'd half filled another trolley by the time I pointed out what we went the for and we continued to fill it until it was nearly full before we even got to the ice cream. Sadly our brand was no longer on offer. But I resolved to make some myself, which sounded even better to my mind.

So I washed up, we started dinner and I was mostly finished cooking it at around 7ish but I wanted to wait for mum to get back from picking Jeff up before serving it. In retrospect this might not have been the best idea.

Mum finished her diner at about 9 and we started the ice cream. I remember it being much more complicated, last time, you had to be very careful to stir it properly or the eggs would sink and cook incorrectly. I definitely intend to use this recipe more often, even when making custard (icecream is basically frozen custard).

I'd been inspired to make this icecream a week or 2 ago, when Elder Waddington made some icecream for a dinner appointment with a friend from church (being a single sister there has to be a chaperon there with them, which often, if not always, falls to me. Not that I'm complaining). He made it with 'Oreos' (a type of American sandwich biscuit, if you don't know), which was apparently a family recipe, and later remarked how some people had suggested he manufacture it on a larger scale. He said he'd thought about but that it was unfeasible due to copyright restrictions, at which point I pointed out it'd just have to become 'Bourbon icecream', which got a laugh, though I was being serious, and I think he said something about it being a good idea but dishonest which worried be because I've always looked at the Oreo as being a Bourbon made with a cheaper recipe but sold at more than double the price for a packet. (The difference being because a bourbon is, I must assume, some type of 'public domain' recipe; there are dozens of companies that make them and so they're quite cheap at full price. Still higher quality than an Oreo, though).

We put pickle to bed. I don't know what time she fell asleep but it was nearly 11pm when I logged on. While recounting the day's events to a friend online I realised I had enough to make a somewhat decent blog entry, so here it is. While talking to her I also started perusing DeviantArt.com, looking at lots of beautiful pictures which I have continued to do until now which I sadly realise is just a few minutes before dawn breaks and I have been a naughty boy. I haven't even felt that tired... Though now my eyes are starting to feel sore and my back is quite stiff... Guess it's off to bed with me :(

Don't Believe in Pickles

Well a lot's happened. And I'm going to skip all of it and progress to yesterday at about 6pm.

Mum yelled at me from downstairs that Pickle might be dead. Not waiting to hear the rest I plummeted downstairs to try to save my beloved niece. I reached the landing to find that she wasn't even here (I'd only just woke up from a nap and pickle had been here when I fell asleep). Elise had just called and said that Pickle had fallen down the stairs and that her neck was twisted. Panicked we searched for the car keys so that me and mum could go and lend assistance as soon as possible. Not finding them we soon gave up and set about walking up the hill.

I tried to force myself into the reality of the situation; that a baby couldn't survive a broken neck and that my 'ickle pickle, whom I had only taken shopping that morning to buy a new sippy cup, was dead. That we'd arrive to find a mother in morning, a child crying and an infant lying still and silent.

Half way up the hill is where the pavement of the hill meets the foot path that leads almost directly to their house. We just made to climb it (while skipping parts of the winding path) when a car tooted, urgently behind us. It was Elise, Stav and the kids. Pickle was strapped into her chair and, aside from a few tears that were nearly dry, she was smiling and happy. I kissed her cheek and moved back so mum could do the same and broke down and cried.

Apparently it was not her neck that was twisted into the wrong angle but her leg. And even that seemed to be fine.

Mum and I squeezed into the back, which wasn't comfortable as we're both rather large people and I was wedged in between mum and a baby seat and Bink was on my lap. Bink cheerfully told the tale of what had happened; that his little sister had fallen down the stairs "very fast" and had cried. They didn't take us home (which, at that point, would have been less than an minute away. I assumed they were giving us a lift because of mum's walking disability). It turned out that we were heading to hospital of the next town. I'm still not exactly sure why.

I could barely look at Pickle. She was wearing a white kind of furry coat and a pink summer dress and the sun glistened in her Blond ringlets and her eyes were bluer than they normally seemed (as, for a while, they've been becoming less and less blue). She seemed absolutely perfect.

I broke down into crying again. Both Bink and Pickle found this very funny, particularly Bink (I don't know if pickle was laughing because her brother was or because of the way my face seemed to contorting itself in a way beyond my control or both).

The thing is... I couldn't believe it was real. I had become convinced they my Pickle was dead, killed by negligence.

I don't know what's real and what's not. Was she alive, as my senses told me? Or was my mind creating a situation that I could cope with so that I didn't have to live with the alternative? A hysterical mother, coupled with a bad line would be hard enough to understand and "leg" could easily sound like "neck". But this was something I'd already considered and that could be the fantasy my mind had chosen to enact for me. The people around me were talking and discussing the situation as it 'seemed' but even their words could have been my imagination. Maybe what heard bore no similarity to what was really said, maybe we all sat in silence for the entire journey.

Maybe the whole trip was a lie, maybe we arrived at Elise's house to find police and an ambulance and her little body was taken away.

When we got their Elise didn't want to wait for the elevator and took pickle down the stairs (but this, too, could have been something I made up as I discovered the other day that pickle doesn't like lifts and cries when the doors shut. Apparently she's a little claustrophobic). Stav was parking the car so it was just me, Mum and Bink going down the lift and I told mum what was going through my head).

We went to the ward for children's minor injuries. There was a room with lots of toys at which pickle was particularly excited. She ran in and out with some new, interesting toy she'd found and handed them all to me before running back in to see what else she could find.

I couldn't bear it.

I couldn't face the possibility that the illusion might be shattered at any moment and that I'd have to face a bitter reality.

I went out and lay on the car's bonnet until Stav came out to get something and then continued to lay there until everybody was ready to leave. Mum sat in the front, this time, and Elise sat in the back with me, which was slightly more comfortable. (Well, not for Elise, but I didn't really give a damn about how she felt).

Elise and Stav argued a lot on the way whom, assigning blame for the fall to oneanother; Stav shouting and her for not being attentive enough; that just letting your eyes off a child of that age for a moment (which she had; she was moving laundry from one room to another) was a moment too long. She, in turn, shouted at him for not putting up the baby gates which were strewn across their house and yard (several of which are largely used for keeping their dogs from fucking). Of course the were both right and should both have something bad happen to them. (I'd quite like to be the one to perform said badness). This made him exceedingly angry and he continued to shout and I tried to tune them out. My interest was rekindled when Elise took her turn to rebuke him by telling her about police procedures and how, if anything serious had happened, the police would take the time to question the neighbours about the family and how Stavross constantly shouts and is abusive to both her and the children. He was quieter after this, but according to mum he was still steaming in his shell for the rest of the trip.

As we re-entered the town boundaries we nearly passed their old car, one they were still trying to sell. (A horrible little convertible). It was on a grassy corner on the drive-way to an industrial estate where I'm quite certain parking isn't allowed. Stavross pulled up here and got out, took Bink off my lap and went to the other car.

Elise took Pickle with her, deciding that she was taking her to a larger hospital for further checks as there have been so many cases of unnoticed child injuries in the press, this last couple of years ('Baby P' being the only example they could name, who had a broken spine that the doctors they took him to completely missed, somehow).

I wanted to be alone, so (after taking some painkillers for a headache brought on by travel sickness) I slipped unnoticed into a spare bedroom (one with no available beds, as it's recently become little more than mum's wardrobe, as she has an addiction to eBay she can't contain) where I lay on the floor between clothing wracks.

I lay there for an hour or 2 before anybody found me. Mum turned the light on and asked if I was ok and I told her I wanted to be alone, so she turned it off again and left.

At some point I fell asleep. I don't know what time it was. The painkillers must have knocked me out (the only ones I could find were memtid, which are something of an 'Overkill' for a travel sickness headache) because it was still quite early for me as I'd had a nap in the early afternoon and I was very uncomfortable.

I woke up with some parts of my body in cramp and others were numb. It was about 11.30. Mum and Jeff were already downstairs. Apparently I had a dinner in the oven. It was chips and a burger. Everything was still very unreal to me. I don't know what time Elise arrived but I hadn't quite finished eating at the time. Mum took the baby to bed and I took some milk up, after.

I still didn't want to face Pickle this morning. I realised why, later.

This morning, after feeding her and either before or after I bathed her, she was playing with a pot of sudocrem (cream for babies' bottoms) which I took off her, causing her to bump the back of her head on the table. And she cried, and cried hard and I couldn't bring myself to comfort her.

She got up and cried on her feet and asked to be picked up and leaned on the front of the sofa when I didn't and rubbed her tears away with little fists and came back to me and hugged my legs. I wanted to pick her up and give her all the love she wanted until the pain went away but I knew that if I did and the illusion shattered I'd fall twice as hard and might be irreparably broken when I landed. When I still couldn't pick her up she went to the sofa again and repeated and came back and hugged my legs. It was heart breaking.

I did pick her up this time but I couldn't hug her, which she clearly didn't understand. I took her up to her grandmother. I would have asked her to give pickle the love she needed but she'd stop crying. Apparently, after that long, just being held was enough, even if it wasn't particularly affectionate. I tried to explain to mum what my problem was but I couldn't. It's been very hard to explain to anybody.

I even went to the doctor to try and get referred to a therapist.

He said it was most likely brought on by stress and prescribed me something mild to take the edge off for a few days and said that if I still had the same problem after then that I should come back and he'd make the referral. (Actually I'm not sure if he said he'd definitely make the referral, but he did say that I should come back if the problem persisted).

We went shopping then. What was promised to be 'just a few things for dinner tonight' turned into things for dinner tomorrow, things for dinner tomorrow and things to be eaten over the course of the week. I had prevented mum from getting the deepest size of trolley and was forced to regret that with the amount of things she got.

On the way home we 'called in' to 'check' on pickle, who was promptly strapped into the baby seat. I still couldn't face her. I walked home.

That pretty much brings me up to speed. I've been home for hours but I get distracted easily while writing these things.

Prizes Withdrawn

I slept quite well although I was woken earlier than I would have liked in order to get Charles out of bed. In doing so I woke Dave up. (I'm not a morning person). He decided to wake Chug instead, so I went back to bed.

Tony has fallen out with us. He's refusing to come out and Mum and Jeff reckon it might be for good this time. (Yeah; right...)

Tony has said he'll babysit at Elise's place but Elise isn't willing to have him there. I understand where she's coming from, after all; I'm not willing to have him here. I would babysit myself but when I heard that tony was OK doing there I assumed that mum had already spoken with Elise and that she was OK with first. It's not OK for her to go sticking her nose where it doesn't belong, especially if that means inviting to Tony to watch Elise's children at a house that's not hers.

I've put my foot down. There is absolutely no reason why she can't have tony there. Well, there's the Stavros thing. (A few weeks ago he and the bitch had some kind of argument, she came here and he followed some time after to get his son. He was screaming his head off and the babies were scared so Tony held Dylan back where the scouse prick couldn't get him and he went screaming up the hill, still perfectly audible from here, shouting some pretty horrible things. Something similar happened a few days ago, only this time in the middle of the day and there were more people about at whom he could scream directly. I wish the retarded fucker would just go back to Liverpool so we can bomb the place). Stavros doesn't like Tony. Nobody likes either Stavros or Tony but Stav has, in the past, said he doesn't mind if Tony is there to babysit his children. And I'd quite like to see the results of that, to be frank.

So she might have a good reason, I just don't happen to think it's good enough. It seems that mum fails to see Elise's biggest problem with a scenario that involves having Tony at her place; it means that she'll have both children there and the self centered bitch can't handle that.

Mum has agreed to have Pickle for the day (which means that pickle is asleep in mum's bed and I'll have to take over the moment she wakes up).

Apathy in the UK

I guess this will be a short post.

I've been increasingly apathetic, of late. I couldn't tell you exactly why.

The weekend before last Mum and Chug were sick with something. I don't know if it was a flu or what. Last weekend Mum was looking better and Chuggle had recovered buy I was sick. (I think it's some kind of defense mechanism; a part of the mother figure wont allow themselves to become sick when there is nobody else to take care of the family. And I look at myself as my family's primary care giver so that makes me a mother figure. So my body either goes into some kind of 'mind-over-matter' thing or it just refuses to succumb to any symptoms for as long as it can).

It was certainly flu like, in aspects; nausea, headaches, random fevers and sudden violent fits of shivering (even though I wasn't cold). I didn't cough or sneeze, though. There were certain other problems that I don't want to speak about through this medium that have continued. Mum thinks it's Crohn's disease.

Since then I've been left with the aforementioned apathy. I'm amazed I even managed to muster the effort to write this. It's a struggle to bring myself to do the things I need to do or try to entertain myself. I just sit or lie there. Even if I do get the energy to entertain myself I find there's nothing I particularly want to do. Nothing that anybody says bothers me. Nothing interests me. I don't care about anything.

Dave has developed a fondness for the TV show 'Lost'. It's the kind of show I might have been interested in at one time or another, or it has all the aspects of one; conspiracy/mystery, science fantasy elements. But I'm not interested in it. I think we've been watching it since before I fell sick but I don't think I was getting into it at the time. I wouldn't have even watched as much as we have (too damn much) if he wasn't so into it. I remember thinking most of the way through the first season that I'd probably get into it soon enough. Then I got sick and I never did get into it. I don't know whether or not being sick has anything to do with my indifference to the show. I never got into it but I am pretty tired of it. It's all he wants to watch.

Elise went to Liverpool without telling anybody, today. She didn't come home for her daughter until slightly before midnight. Her phone's battery died at some point and she didn't try looking for a pay phone or getting somebody else to contact us or anything.

I'm sick of the girl. But I've said this often enough.

There's not much else to say.

Stupid Scouse Dealer

Nothing out of the ordinary at all happened to me today, other than getting up early to make sure Chug had his ritalin while Jeff went to work and staying up to look after the baby.

While nothing was happening to me, though, Elise was having a very interesting day. "Interesting", in this context, being somewhat similar to the Chinese curse "May you always live in interesting times".

Her house was raided by the police. They searched everywhere and Dylan was very excited, so I'm told; he even asked them to search him and his little bike and they complied. (They found on him a pound, which was probably his reward for just being so adorable).

Stav was taken down to the nick. Elise was worrying her head off. I think she might have been glad to be rid of him (or so I'd hope) but probably unhappy about the prospect of any repercussions. She came here, at least for a while, with young Bink. Actually I didn't know any of this before she arrived; when Bink walked into my room looking for chocolates (I've been going through it lately) I was surprised to see him. I took him down stairs with the promise that I'd take him out to get chocolate (or "lock-lock", as he calls it). He picked out a box of Cadbury Fingers and also wanted a foam sword that was similar to one he already owned and, I suspect, long since thrown away because he used it to chew when he was teething whenever we weren't looking. (It was cheap enough so I figured; what the hell). Tony didn't seem to think I should have done, but Tony complains about absolutely everything.

Apparently all the police found was one rather tiny little spliff and an amount of hash that could only be measured with the most sensitive of scales (not something that one would find in a kitchen). He was released without charge or caution. He found the whole thing hilarious, which annoyed everybody else as Elise was sick with worry and Mum and Tony, while probably not concerned as to what happened to Stav, were sick with worry regarding Elise and their children.

I reasoned that, having gone to the trouble of raiding a house that the police just couldn't see the point of charging, or even cautioning Stavross for possession of such minuscule amounts when they could just put the whole thing down to misinformation. It was suggested that Stav had probably grassed on somebody, which seems far more plausible.

Melodrama

So it's nearly a week since I've updated this thing. It's not that nothing of interest has happened so much as the fact that by the time I get to the computer I just can't be bothered to type it up or I've forgotten most of the details of that day.

About 2 days after Chug's birthday he received a text which, since he wasn't around, I read. (I didn't think it would be anything more interesting than an alert to say that he had a missed call).

I was wrong; it was a very melodramatic message from Laura, saying that she was worried about where their relationship was going, how disinterested he seemed the last time she was at our place (apparently she felt the impression that he wanted her to leave), how she felt their relationship was worth fighting for and that she loved him. (I realised early on in the message that it wasn't something that I should be reading but I couldn't look away. It's like seeing a disaster; no matter how horrifying it is you can't tear your eyes away). I felt like screaming at her "You're 12, for fucks sake, you have no idea what love is!" (and even if she did know, what she and Chug feel for oneanother doesn't nearly resemble love). It also mentioned something about how he didn't text her as much as he used to, which seemed especially odd as he'd only had a phone for a few days.

Reading this I felt a brotherly responsibility to try and advise or educate Chuggle. Chug, however, was annoyed that I had read his text message and was certain that he didn't need my help, evidenced by a pretty volatile reaction to my very presence. I think he may have even attempted violence.

When it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to help by discussing things with him I thought I would turn to Laura, thought I had no other means of talking with her other than leaving a message on her facebook, saying that if she wanted advice regarding Chuggle she should feel free to call me.

When she said she didn't have an credit I agreed to meet her at club on the following day and we could discuss matters there. I hadn't actually been planning to go but I saw no reason why I couldn't just stop by for a few minutes and then pop home.

As I was getting read to go to Club, the next day, I got a call from Steve, our church branch president. He was calling to remind me that I'd agreed to go home teaching that night and to see if I was still up for it. I told him that I was indeed still willing to participate. I didn't mind; I didn't really fancy club to begin with so I could simply pop to Ego and have a quick natter with Laura with anything that was on her mind.

I took Chug (for some reason I had to take the baby with me in her push chair), got some money from the cash point for mum and asked Laura if she still wanted to talk. Apparently she didn't, it was either all sorted or she felt too self conscious as we couldn't really find a private spot while I had the baby to attend to in her pram.

I returned home. I have no idea what I did to pass the time before Steve came to take me along. First we went to see the Hughes. I could hardly breathe for the smoke. I mostly said nothing as Glynn and I don't really get along too well. Not that there's any animosity between us, we just don't clique on any level. Well, I clique with hardly anybody, but Glynn's one of those few people with whom I have so little to say that the silences and forced conversation is awkward to the point of discomfort. At some point the conversation turned to dogs. I was asked if I liked dogs and I said 'no', informing them that if I was given a dog I'd give it back in a jar. They asked about 'that big dog' i used to have, and I told them he was now in a jar. I later realised that none of them really got the joke, that the jars in question were urns in which one puts a cremated... well, in this case; a cremated dog, even though they'd all laughed. Maybe it was just the idea of putting a fully grown dog into a jar, the latter of which tend to be quite small.

While there I got a strong impression that I was supposed to ask the Hughes' to pray more. I didn't ask them, feeling that Glynn would turn his nose up at me (as he has done in the past), however Steve had apparently had the same impulse and I was highly surprised when he asked them to pray instead of me, without a word on the subject mentioned from me.

Next we went to see James Blondel (I don't know if that's the correct spelling of his surname) and had a nice long chat with him. He seemed in good enough spirits, but he's still rather down that he can't find a job, and it seems pretty unlikely that he might find one soon, given the economic situation. I think this is especially depressing as he's engaged to a young lady who is about to join the American air force.

We didn't get time to see the other people we were assigned to visit as it was after 9 before we left James' place.

---

I was going to add some of the highlights of events that happened in the rest of the time between then and now but most of it is the melodramatic love life of Chug and Laura. I don't think I'll actually go into any details as I was planning to. It's not that I'm trying to respect their privacy (which I would if they asked me to) but rather that I don't want to paint a picture of Chug being a worse person than he actually is.

It's now wednesday the 4th.

And that's all I can think of to say.